Vagueposting

There are still a million thanks to give you. In a million little ways that I hope to convey plainly and without even a note of irony. As the last month of this strange year dawns, it is the beginning of the end. When it ends, I will keep all the things that were good in higher esteem than the things that brought me down.

My fear of the coming year remains a constant. How could it not? My subversion will be to love and to remain alive to see how far I can push myself into this new path. Though there are days when my brain cannot seem to operate, I will remain. I'll be the constant, but only if you let me.

Would you like to know where it can take us? Let it take us, then. Let it consume us. We'll be a part of something else, now. While the world is on fire, we can take this one thing out of it. If you want.

Maybes

The tree is still bare of ornaments. There are still dishes in soapy water. I ordered delivery for dinner.

Maybe not doing so well?

Maybe.

Can I get through this?

Maybe.

Will I feel better if I sleep?

Maybe.

Will I have more nightmares?

Maybe.

Ugh.

Maybe that too.

Where do I go from here? Is there anything left, or is this it?

Maybe.

Today's Self-Report

Another day, another hour and a half of overtime. I need the money. The work is tedious, for the most part. It isn't great, but not horrible. There are just so many other places I'd rather be. I feel like the biggest accomplishment was getting up to the break room to re-enroll in insurance for the year. The rest that I did is standard. Only 18,255 steps, since I didn't work quite as long as I did yesterday.

Now, I've come home, my feet are throbbing. It's strange how I don't notice it until I am resting. A perk to my body not aging all that badly. Of course, this means I'll be letting the dishes soak in soapy water, and ignoring the now two bags of garbage. I really don't think I'll make it down the steps. Hopefully I'll remember them in the morning, this time. Yes, I know, forgetting two days in a row is kinda bad.

Oh and yes, I'll be up at 3 a.m. to cover the opener for the next three days. My days can end much shorter, barring anymore surprises like today. Really, that was probably 15% more than I hoped it would be. Let's hope that the tradition people have of not ordering mid-week continues. As young as I feel, I know I can't go full-steam for the next three days.

Also, let's hope I sleep.

I haven't had any meltdowns. My life has become more evenly distributed. However, the last two weeks have been hell. I hope this subsides. Today is a good day, though. I just want it to last.

Long Week

A lesson learned this month, along with a few other months this has happened, an extreme negativity and depression that strikes early is followed by an extremely physically painful cycle. Fact of life, for me. Not everyone. It isn't enough to keep us all walled up at home, all the time. It's just something that doctors might want to take a gander at and solve. They could make some good money out of actually trying to alleviate this in the minority who suffers this much.

Also, I find it sad that I've heard people accuse me of wanting to set women's rights back a hundred years just because I'd like this affliction someday receive some kind of effective medication. Nothing I have taken or tried to do or not do has helped. Citalopram and fluoxetine and risperdone and lithium and... you get it. Nothing touched it. Midol, ibuprofen, aspirin, naproxen, etc. did nothing for the physical symptoms to follow. Absinthe remains the one thing that actually numbs me for the time I need to get through. Sirene Verte and Lucid, specifically. I have no idea why. Bourbon and wine just give me headaches on top of it. This inconvenient time isn't enough to put women back in the home. Pointing it out doesn't have to mean doing that. Pointing it out should mean that we look into ways to combat it, altogether. Instead of ignoring it because it isn't a majority problem.

Anyway, I'm still on the coattails of the shitshow that is my uterus' terrible behavior. I should probably not write so freely. Maybe one day I'll cringe. Then again, maybe one day I'll be glad I was so honest. Never can tell with me, how I'll review my past writing.

I worked 11 hours today. I walked over 6 miles, or 10 km. I lifted a lot of weight. I bent, squatted repeatedly, pushed and pulled heavy objects. I dealt with customers, many who are really, seriously grumpy right now. Trying not to mirror them is probably harder than any other aspect of my job. I'm not exactly a good actress. No Hollywood for me! It's fucking exhausting. If you haven't tried it, don't even talk to me about how easy my job is. Shove it.

I'm working straight through until Friday. It's going to be a long week.

Strange Optimism

The last few days have been a vacuum of terribleness. The end result is a day of pain. I know it'll be over, soon. I'll be fresh out of the horrible ideas and feelings soon. Maybe it'll be replaced with the sense of wonder I had for the season as a kid. Stranger things have happened.

The description I find best fitting for the last week is to compare it to when you're driving in the middle of the night, through something like Kansas or Indiana. There are no lights, the stars aren't bright enough in the sky, and even the moon hypnotizes you. There are no rest areas or exits for another good 25 miles, and you have to try to stay awake. If you know that fight, you can somewhat empathize with the struggle through depression that wanders into suicidal ideation. No matter how you try, your eyes just keep trying to close. Your brain is crying to be taken out of consciousness. It physically hurts.

Imagine that for a week or more.

That's close. No metaphor bears close examination, though.

I did the dirty work of making myself get through it. Let's hope it lasts.

Now, I need to get through the physical torture of the next day. I will be rearranging the living room, getting some garland and new lights. I'll try to warm up the feel of my cold living room. Solstice and Yule will never quite leave my heart. Christmas with all its stories of lost souls finding their way to the light must have dug in deeper than my mom's refusal to let me go to church. Take away the layers of fiction, and the message under it all must have stuck.

I don't care for snow and ice. Luckily that is an unusual thing here, at Christmas. I'll take the small drop in temperatures that haven't hit freezing, the decorations, the songs, and such, though. Maybe the memory of comfort will win the day.

First, I have to get through this week.

Practice

It appears that words are beginning to form, again. Writing is happening. I'm not going to say it's good. It's practice. I'm starting with something that's been bugging me for a long time. A story with two endings. One ending is the socially-unacceptable one. The other is how I wish things would turn out.

The wished-for life fantasy lingers, but know that my life keeps proving me wrong about everything. So I indulge in the other ending, and it is cathartic. The fact that no one will approve of it makes writing it more fun. I've gone with a mediocre ending once before, because the story just wasn't turning out well, and my life was really mediocre to begin with. It was how things always fucking turn out, anyway. I scrapped all of that writing and started again. Which was actually my third attempt.

I lost the entirety in the crash of my computer in 2006. I have what I'd written up until a few months before that on disks. I had a 3.5 floppy drive, at the time. I also had a toddler, and I can't even use those disks even if I got a floppy reader somewhere.

So I'm writing it again, because it won't go away. And it's good practice, for when I finally get around to the real things I want to write, that may someday come out of me, again. I have CD-ROMs of those stories and books. Well, extremely early versions, anyway. I'll start over again.

Some day.

24 years

Very little to do at work. I stayed three hours and went home. I have napped on and off since then. I had a little more food in between naps. I see my kids are occupied at their grandparents' house. The day is nothing much to me. I guess it means something to other people.

There's not a whole lot to say. It's just been 24 years of muddling through this holiday. Sometimes it feels okay, and other times it feels like hell. Whether spent among my family, other families, or on my own, it has been a reminder of times I wish I could forget. Maybe not forget, but at least I could just not feel anything when I think on them.

The downward trajectory begins now until December 4th. After that, things should feel more festive, again. As I sit here, I just wait for the day to end, while the rest of the country spends time either dramatically dealing with horrible families they'd rather avoid, or swallowed up in familial bliss. I tend to be thankful that I am not dealing with any drama at all, anymore.

That is the good I wish to focus on.

I hope the few of you who take the time to read this have a good day. I'll toast you with my glass of white chardonnay. From my heart to yours.

...

Bah.

Fuck Thanksgiving.

Fuck this whole time of year.

Fuck my hormones.

Fuck all of it.

A Bit Better?

In regards to my future, at least I know I have one.

The past doesn't interest me like it used to. I certainly know what I was going through, but it isn't taking up space in my brain. There's a slight inconsistency to my feelings, now and then. When I settle down and invite my feelings to come in, everything else comes in, instead.

It's good to feel like I have freedom. From my own invisible prison. It actually feels pretty good.

I've got a couple months left. I'll use them to the best of my abilities.

Pure Pessimism

I've begun to wonder if "Chuck" wants us to hate the world and each other so much, we'll be relieved when some disaster finally strikes, and we're done.

I know I won't feel this way all the time.

It's just a phase.

If 2016 sucked this much, I wonder how badly 2017 will.

This was the series finale, right? What godforsaken spinoff is going to take over next year?

All the people out there doing a good job of proving our system will not catch the people who want to destroy it. Instead of our NSA, CIA, Pentagon, and FBI going after real usurpers and enemies, these have all been a fake system to become everything they kept telling us to fear and hate. But now the "right" people are doing all the things these agencies and all the conspiracy theorists told us Democrats were doing, so it doesn't matter. Law and order is for other people, not them. Like people who go 85 on the highway and run red lights who then go on about the African American people who get shot after being stopped for more minor infractions than that - "They shoulda obeyed the law." They only say that because the laws are for them, not these people.

Every day, the evidence showing semen stain elect is part of another thing Republicans have been pointing at Democrats for doing and never having evidence. Every day, the right excuses it all away. It doesn't count, now. Your true colors are showing. I can't believe I thought anyone was honest about this shit. Disingenuous be thy name.

I keep hoping I'll wake up in a different time stream. This one is going to suck. No two ways about it.

I have no fire left. Not right now.

Better

No, there is no great rejoicing, right now. Everything still looks like several dumpster fires. People are already beginning to suffer. Loss is in store for us. In 2000, I kept my mouth shut after the election was halted by the Supreme Court and Gore conceded. In 2004, I cried for a while. I let it go, though. Things were shit, but I was getting myself untangled from a worse life. It could have been worse for me.

This time, I'm not just mourning the loss of a little hope for progress. This time is different. People willfully do not see what they've done. Or they think it's funny. All the stories of emboldened hatred and intimidation just sail on past them. Talk of internment camps being a precedent, talk of purging Silicon Valley of "too many Asians," appointments of people with dominionist and fascist ideation. Right over their heads, at best. Part of a heart-warming future of purging and genocide they dream about, at worst. It's different. I'm not sad Hillary lost. I'm fucking brutally angry that Trump won.

"When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time," Maya Angelou said. Instead, people are going to turn their face to the walls and hope it isn't true.

Yes, I'm furious. I'm not apologetic about it. I am not a pacifist, either. I come from a different background. I am not a strawman people create of liberals singing "Kumbaya" or whatever. My background is one of fight over flight. Those talking about empathy for anyone who envisions genocide and purging aren't going to ever get through to me. My rage is squarely centered on them.

After all is said and done, though, I am through the grieving of a future that has been aborted. Whatever twisted manifestation is in store isn't here yet. I will use the time allotted to me to do the things I still love, while I still can. I realize that before this, there was no promise of a new day. Death comes. It is our only truth. Each second that ticks is mine, as long as I can breathe. When dementia comes for me, I hope that I've sucked every last good bit out of my life. I hope to skid into the pine box and the crematorium having used up all I can.

Nothing will take that from me. Certainly not a hollow, orange egomaniac.

A House

There is a house that appears in my dreams. It has appeared in my dreams as long as I can remember. It has three floors, an attic and a basement. The halls are narrow, the rooms a bit small, but with very tall ceilings. What I remember most, though are the basement and attic.

The attic starts out like a normal floor, with sloping ceilings. The room is small, and there are walls on either side of it. I walk through a door to the back part. It gets smaller, but it is still livable. There is one more door, much smaller, which was probably once a secret passage, but is no longer secret. It leads to a tiny closet, where you can just sit up and stretch your legs. It would be a perfect place to hide, if needed.

The basement is enormous. It has a dirt floor, for most of it. Some of it was paved with concrete, but not all. There are storage units in the basement. They have no light, and the doors stick. In my dreams, I'm terrified to go near them, lest someone close me in, and I can't get out. There is only one hanging bulb, and the place needs to be cleaned. I always start planning to pave the rest and get in an expert to dry it out. The stairs also need to be replaced.

In the attic, there is a wooden rocking chair of some hard, but light colored wood. It is as light as pine, but as hard as cherry. It is ornately carved, and I don't touch it. There isn't much in the way of furnishings throughout the house, and that is the only thing that ever stands out.

When I wake up, I miss that house with the force of heartbreak. I have no idea where I saw this house. I know it well, and I want it, a lot. I find myself homesick for a place that I'm not even sure exists.

The Way

Many people don't know all that much about me. It's okay. I've moved on from wanting to be understood and valued as I am. I'm content in my own skin, now. It's something I fought long and hard to have. After all, there are over seven billion humans. You're likely to understand very few of them. Hell, probably more like none of them. Not even yourself.

The way in which I navigate each day is my own to choose. The things I choose to keep me alive are mine, alone. Though I'll probably always adhere to the common phrase "an it harm none" for the rest of my life, it isn't due to anything outside of the fact that this is how I wish to live. No one's going to punish me. No odd magical energy is going to force me to pay for anything I've done wrong. I live to the best of my ability and with the hope that I can improve the lives of others in small ways because it's the best thing to do. We're all we have. We've got to do it for each other. It makes everyone's lives better to improve others' lives, too.

There is a selfish goal on top of the rightness of doing the best we can to improve each others' lives. Humanity is definitely held together with a web of social necessities. No one is really their own island. Our brains are not built to be isolated, and we survive because we interact with each other. If everyone turned into an antisocial person, our species would die out. The genetic bond to life keeps us together.

My goals are similar to most other people's goals. That's the one good thing left about humans. No one really thinks they're trying to actively harm other people, unless they have antisocial personality traits. Luckily, that is a small portion of the population. The social need to better as many people's lives as I can, in the limited means I have drives me more strongly than others. Perhaps not as strongly as others still.

I'll do far more good than bad with my life. That much I can promise. No matter what happens. This is my guiding force. You don't need to understand if you don't want. I've got this.

Purity and tightropes be damned. I'll do what I can, for as long as I can. You can keep slashing away at my attempts. You can yell at me all you want about my lack of purity. I'll keep trying to be the best version of me as possible. You just do you. I know it's easy to fall into looking for ways in which you are better than me. I don't really care about that, though. You're not my new priests. You don't get to minister to me, either. I'll do the best I can with what I have, and if you feel better about yourselves when I fail, then maybe that is me helping you, too. In the end, I've done more good than bad.

As I come back into myself and the present I live in, I'll hang on to this.

Where Now?

Today, the question is "Am I going to make it through this alive?" The secondary question is "Do I want to?"

I don't know.

Back to the Present

Frustration and irritation abound. There is a big hole inside me, and the rest of my brain has to dance around the hole to function. Yesterday it was easier. I didn't feel like I had many steps I had to take around it. Today, it feels like I keep forgetting, and I've tripped into the hole, climbed out, and fallen right back in without thought.

The vigilance is really getting old. I want to go back to dreaming the world was going to remain as it was, with maybe even some incremental good steps. I want to go back to pretending life was safe for a while longer. After all, I just got my footing after the downfall of the early 00s and 10s. There was a plateau for me, here. I was looking around and healing things I've neglected while merely surviving.

When I say I don't want to start over again, I am talking about this. Job security isn't real, in economically safe times. When things get precarious, as they will, that security will be even more dangerous. Since I've been through it before, I fear going through it again. There is no sense of certainty that since I did it before, I'll make it this time. Perhaps this time I won't. There is no way to know.

I could very well be okay, in time. I mean, that's the point of uncertainty, right? Could be.

The best things I can do are the things I was taught. Touch something, smell something, taste something, listen to something, and look at things around me. Bring the focus back to now. Not the past. Not the bad times of the past. Right now. Things are stable right now. It has to work for future anxiety as well as past trauma, right? Becoming present.

Nothing right now is bad. Most of what is going on, in my own little oasis, is good. I've got to bring myself back to these things.

I have a candle that smells like sandalwood, and will burn that now. My cat's beside me, accidentally scratching me as he grooms himself. I see the dark purple, microfiber sheets with the same color, shiny thread embroidery at the edge. I love these sheets and pillowcases. I am listening to The Twilight Sad on Apple Music, by suggestion of the playlists catered to me. I have Peppermint Ghirardelli, filtered water, and have had a good dinner with both kids. This is my life, right now.

After this, I will need to settle down to sleep so I can wake up at 3 and go to work at 4. That will be the best thing. Sleep, even when it isn't full and robust, is my favorite thing. Maybe because I don't ever get enough. I enjoy it all the more when I do get it.

I gently tell the worries coming up they are not needed right now. I treat them like the children who are scared inside me. No need to fight them. Just reassure them. Look around, see the world as is. Worrying about it won't help us. A plan must be formed. It must be done without worry. Fear is not going to help.

So begins a new experiment.

Thank You

Something has changed. In the space of a year, so much has changed for so many people. Everyone thinks this year is nothing but shit. However, I've had a change, too. One that isn't quite complete, but it's so much bigger to me than I can really express. There was a time, some years ago, when someone else who was important to me let me know that he was paying attention to me. It wasn't something that was possible for many reasons. However, when I made the choice to leave my ex, I held on to the idea that this person I felt was important to me had told me I impacted his life, and it helped. Now, there is something going on like that again.

I need this, too. It's been something that has brought me through a dark night or two. It continues to be something that pulls me through some very trying moments, this week. In time, I hope that this blossoms into something I can discuss more specifically. For now, I just want to note that something bigger in my personal life is growing and flowering and whatever else you want to associate with it.

It's the only real thing keeping me from faltering. I needed this. I need it. My life goes on, anyway, and this just keeps me fighting. I could only wish that my few words here might offer the same in return.

Stage: Anger

All manner of of things are turning me into nothing but a ball of rage. One of the biggest is the call for showing empathy and compassion to people who are backing a world filled with hate crimes. Already started. All over the news. It's out there. It's begun. They're bold and they're vicious. There have been suicides.

TW, suicidal ideation. The night of the election I went to sleep when it was still looking okay for Clinton, but starting to fall a bit. I hoped to wake up to news that the rollercoaster ended with Hillary Clinton as the president. However, I dreamed that I was watching Trump's victory speech. When I did wake up, I was in a panic. My computer was so slow to start. That last few seconds of hope was quickly dashed, and I was gripped by fear. My first reaction was to plot out the seven gun shops within five miles of my house. (There are more places to buy guns here than that. Those were just the closest ones.) There is a part of me that has lived in fear much of my life. I've kept it behind a wall until recently. I was very open with many people within the last few years about my bisexuality and my atheism. I'm still not sure which one of these has caused me more grief. It is established. I can't hide any of it, now, because I felt so safe. I no longer feel safe. And like a cyanide capsule in the tooth, this is what I thought in panic.

Today, I want to stay around. Not everything is grand and not everything is resolved. I'm still a single mom, still bisexual, more of an atheist than I was even a month ago, as I've resolved the last bad habits of reincarnation floating around my brain. I'm not going to join a church and renounce my feelings. I refuse to live in terror, because in the end, whether it's next year or in forty years, this all ends the same. If it makes people feel discomfort and anger, all the better. My presence was always merely a dire warning to others. Now it can also be a thorn in their sides. I'm good with that.

I don't know how things will be in a year. Two. Four. I'm guessing worse for me. The emboldened violence and threats will probably be astronomical. I'm going to strive to overcome every one of my impulses to Go, though. Out of spite, at this point.

I look at my childhood. I know I can do this. I don't fucking like it, though.

Aftermath

This is the aftermath day. The world looks bleaker, scarier, and more doomed than it did yesterday. There was a moment when I watched "Threads" again a couple months ago. In that moment, I feared this would happen, and felt sure it would. As the weeks rolled by, though, I began to feel as though this country wasn't just a breath away from dystopia. I began to believe we could roll through to a new day where we could push Clinton into a better vision for everyone.

Instead, the votes of the electoral college go to a person who only lives for himself, in the now. His vision of this country is one I never thought would be embraced so passionately by enough people to win. My blinders are off. I'm sorry I didn't trust my intuition two months ago. My fear grew and exploded, but I will not live in terror. I will not hide and I will not lie. I may cry in anger today, but I know that all life ends, and it's how I lived the short breath I've been given that matters.

Until the moment comes that the guy you assholes elected proves he has no idea what "mutual assured destruction" means, I will continue to live and try to improve things for all of us. We're all we have. There's no guiding, invisible hand that will help us out of this. We have to help each other. If we don't have the backing of the government, and the majority of people around us are trying to stomp on our faces, we'll have to form tighter circles of resistance. One day, this has to stop. And we have to do it.

Divinity has not blessed the fart masquerading as a leader. There is nothing up there guiding this. All of this is on us to fix. Our fellow humans need to be reminded they are part of us as much as we are part of them. We have to address this web of life aspect to their selfishness. They're not going to listen to reason. They've proven this.

As much as I want to run away from all of you, and just not be a part of life anymore, I will stay just to piss you all off.

This Election Must End

I didn't sleep well. I was plagued by anxiety all day long, and had to suppress it at work.

Then I drove straight to the polling place - the senior center. It was for the popular vote, because my vote is total shit in this state. Every two years, I'm reminded just how little I belong here. Yuck. This year was the worst, ever. Period. And these people think a guy who is going to court for raping a 13 year old girl is someone to fucking admire. Nope. Going to be a long time before I look the other way on this. Even if you pretend like that case actually going before a court is nothing, there are a million and one other things to look at. But no. Orange Cheeto Dust Fascist is your savior. (And I'm a dolphin and this is all a dream.)

Watching the numbers unfold is wrong. I should go to sleep, and wake up to the aftermath. I can't sleep at all, though. The headache, the stomach ache, the receding buzz, and my watering eyes can't convince me to look away. I might miss something.

There was already one shooting with a death and injuries near a polling place, this year.

2016 just needs to become history. Fast. No repeat of 2000. NOOOOOO. I say NO. Weeks of bullshit about Florida and hanging chads have been exacerbating the anxiety. I can't go through it again. I just can't.

This has to be over in the morning.

And the rest of the world can laugh at Kentucky, as per usual. Not all of us are heartless fascists who pretend he's not up for rape of a 13 year old girl charges. But there are too many who are. So laugh. I'll laughsob with you.

One More Fucking Day

There is a new app that is still imperfect, but keeps me alive. That might sound odd to other people - especially in my age group. The images are imperfect, but the sound is getting better, all the time. I love the future. Without this, I don't know that there would be much point in ever doing anything, at all.

I love technology.

When

It

Works

Anyway, so yes, there was some vicarious living, and there was a little more cheap wine. My feet hurt beyond all compare.

Tomorrow, I'm going to vote. It's good old boys' world down here, so there was no early voting. If you work during the open polls, tough shit. This state is so anti-democracy and pro-fascism, it's ridiculous. The lies people tell themselves about "freedom" or "patriotism" are phenomenally huge. This election has created a huge divide and most people land on the pro-fascist side.

Some people are more equal than others...

The things I've heard during this election cycle have made my jaw drop. All my worst thoughts have been realized, most of my optimism has been crushed. These people want people that aren't like themselves to die. And many of them harbor fantasies about being the people to do the killing of the "Other." The only thing I know for certain, this year, is that I am definitely better than many of them.

I'm not even going to feel bad about thinking that way. God, Guns, Gays. Those three issues are even more the defining issues they care about. Nothing else. Conform or die. I never will.

Anyway, back to music and sleep. This election can't end soon enough. At least my illusions of people being mostly good with just a little bad have been destroyed. I can see the truth, at last. So many people are just bad with hints of good every now and then.

If I Go, it'll be because I can't run away.

Yeah...

Perhaps a bottle of very weak wine wasn't the absolute best way to handle the day. It felt good. It tasted fantastic. Some fizzy, sweet white Riesling thing that was on sale. Not Boone's Farm cheap, and maybe slightly more alcoholic, and all I really wanted.

The physical pain is hitting me, now. Had an hour and a half overtime. I opted out of breaks, because I didn't want to have to go twice as fast after returning. I kept a nice steady pace. Then the store was packed with people. I have no idea where all these people come from. How can there be that many people in such a tiny little area?

I'm not thinking now. That's the beauty of this. I'm just not thinking. It's great. I recommend it.

Breathing

It's been many years now since I used the words to "Sentinel" to try to boost my optimism on a Facebook post. Lena wrote that she really did hope there were better days to come. Within a few days, her cancer finally took her life. It was her last message to me. I still catch myself with tears in my eyes when I think about that. I don't really believe in an afterlife, so there's no comfort in thinking she finally found better days.

So I try to remember the pep talks she had with me about how she turned her life around later in life, like I had to do. She had harder steps to take than I did, but she also had a support network. I'm balancing everything very well, it's true, but that support network is thin and distant, now. I get some nice gestures from people encouraging me, but I find the words of people who went through bad or worse and came out the other end better off always made the biggest impressions on me. I need to know it's possible. I don't want to be that person everyone else looks to and uses as perspective in their lives.

I sometimes joke and use a variation on the saying "If I can't be a good role model, let me be your dire warning" but honestly, right now, I'd just like to lay down and not carry on with this fight. I just want to take a break from life for a while, and come back refreshed and willing to do more dirty work. Even breathing just needs to be something I don't have to worry about for a while. All of it, really. Just let it float off for a while, then bring me back when I'm rested and refreshed.

That's what I want, not death, just a long vacation from being a human animal on this planet. The closest I'll get is this extra hour of sleep tonight.

Staying

Learning how to stay alive required many experiments. It requires still more to keep punching at shadows. At times, it was a kernel of an illusion I held firmly that should I take my own life, I'd live a similar life, just to keep getting to the same points, so that I could eventually win a fight. I never claimed to know of a purpose for this concept of reincarnation. It was just a habit of thought. There may or may not have been some meaning in it, but I didn't believe in that part of it. Call it more of a superstition.

When explored, it makes zero sense. I don't actually have faith in it. Sometimes this habit of thought still happens. I don't know exactly why this is how my brain works. It is enviable that there are people who never have to examine weird beliefs. I have other weird beliefs. Those are readily examined. The ones that society accept, to some degree, are harder to scrutinize. Sometimes these ideas are given rewards. People accept me in a way I'm not used to. Even if the majority of people around me are Christian, there are enough people who have learned to respect any other version of faith, as long as there is some faith.

In the end, because I couldn't accept a "higher power" behind it, I had to accept it as a superstition. And I admit it still creeps up in my thoughts. Over time, though, the comfort in it has disappeared. Perhaps the comfort was illusion. However, I could also expound on the many other illusions that I have protected myself with to stay alive.

Right now, some figment of a quote is floating with me. It is the tragedy of a suicide who doesn't believe in an afterlife who also wants to know how everything turns out. The only way to see the result is to stick around. I live mostly to see how this goes down. A witness to life events, and a deep curiosity of life seem to be my new experiments in survival.

I want to know what happens tomorrow. The only way to know for sure is to stay.

However, this is tenuous. In time, the nothingness will crawl back in, and I won't know why I ever wanted to see how things turn out. Maybe. I mean, interesting things do happen. They are far away, but maybe they'll keep happening. However, I can't rely on this. I guess I'll start looking for a new experiment soon. I have to plan for the winter.

Achy Bitchy Moan

I've been fighting some nasty sinus thing on and off for a week. Usually, it lands in my ear, but right now it is in my upper sinuses. I also have cramps. And my feet hurt. My brain isn't behaving well. I am not choosing any of this. I'm tired of feeling guilty for not being able to control it, too.

So I'm sulking and suffering the post-concert blues. Everyone knows that feeling. All the good stuff that rushes through wanes, and the brain doesn't like the loss of the rushes. Call it chemical or hormonal or a combination. I already miss my live experiences. Unless there's something within an hour of me, though, I'm out of luck for a while. Oh yeah, and I really want to rebuild my account. It's not exactly where I need it to be. It's tons better than it was a few years ago, even with all the concerts and travel. Man, remember the shittiness of 2012? Fun times. (No, they were the worst, actually.)

I made it through that. I can make it through this year. It's just not going to be my favorite.

AGAIN.